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Andrea Agrippa
"The issue is not with Task Force Manticore's combat skills. They are excellent soldiers, some of the best in the galaxy. When it comes to a fair fight, they always come on top with and with their shields still on. The thing is, pirates and corsairs are not soldiers, especially Yaanari one's. They won´t fight like you want them to and less so when their cargo bays are full of slaves and stolen goods. I am sorry, but your captains and admirals are just not prepared to deal with this kind of problem...but I am. '' ''I have lived as a slave to those bastards, worked for them, seen how they operate and behave. To face the Yaanari raids, you have to think and behave like a corsair, be shrewd, always one step ahead. One of the reasons why they manage to elude our patrols is how they get to their territory before we can get to them.Give me a ship without banners or identification and a crew of veterans with nothing to lose and I will pay the slavers with their same coin. I will hunt down their ships even when they rest in their dockyards, take back the families and friends they have stolen and bring the worst scum in chains back to you to be judged. It is time for the pirates of the galaxy to understand you don´t steal from the Commonwealth without answer" -Andrea Agrippa "The Fox", during a secret meeting with Commonwealth officials- '''Andrea "The Fox" Agrippa, '''was a citizen of the Commonwealth captured and enslaved by Yaanari raiders at the age of 7. After Nearly a decade of working for her new masters, she managed to flee back to her home territory and join the navy to hunt down the same pirates who had tormented her for so many years. Due to her time in Yaanari society, Andrea acquired a fearsome persona quite similar to that of her captors. Feeling that the patrols on the nation's borders were not sufficient to deal with the pirate problem, Andrea many times argued for a change in strategy, including invasions and raids to the Yaanari league's own territory as punishment for not dealing with their troops. Due to the constant negatives, Andrea chose to change tactics and asked to be allowed to try rescue and anti-pirate operations without flying the banner of the Commonwealth. Seeing the conviction in her words and the many plans and possible tactics she had already came up with, the Commonwealth's high command finally allowed her request. Since then, Andrea Agrippa has become the saviour of thousands of slaves and the terror of ten times as many pirates and enslavers. Free to roam the galaxy as she sees fit, Andrea and her ship (the Diana) have fought all manner of corsairs, pirates and even a few Thadrakos mecenas. While not oficially under the employ or pay of the Commonwealth, many of her targets are those pirates who more often raid the nation's borders or kidnap its peoples. Slave to the Yaanari Youth Captured by a band of corsairs by the name of the "Dark Storm" at the age of 7, Andrea spent most of her youth surrounded by slaves of all races and her own, Yaanari masters. During that time, as slavemasters tried to "mold her" into a palace slave, Andrea kept her growing loathing for pirates hidden, her main focus at that moment being survival, so she could afterwards have her revenge. As a way to keep other, stronger slaves from harming her, Andrea tried to imitate the stances and looks of the Yaanari, especially those of the slave masters the chained feared above all. Amused by her "games of pretend", the band decided to stop her training and turn her into the band's mascot instead. She would serve them, amuse them with her impresions and even sometimes fight by their side as the band raided more ships and isolated worlds in search for plunder and fresh bodies. Before her 13th birthday, Andrea tried to escape the claws of her masters thrice. Knowing nothing of how to pilot a ship or whom she could trust, each time she was brought back and punished. Learning from her mistakes, after the third attempt Andrea decided to be patient and wait until the perfect chance presented itself to her. Until then, she would behave and act like the ideal slave, always eager to make her masters happy. That way, she could get closer, learn more from their tactics, their way of combat...and their weaknesses. Teenager Now grown, yet still small when compared to the towering reptilians around her, Andrea managed to become one of the trusted, warrior-slaves of the leader of the band. Acting as its shadow, Andrea learnt what scared her Yaanari lords and how the captain commanded them while they pillaged the stars. While she loathed her new master, Andrea fought to learn as much as she could from him, training with the blade and stopping assassination attempts from rival Yaanari. One of the few things which brought a smile to her during those times were the secret, assassination missions her master ordered her as he found out about a plot, or a member of his crew hiding treasure from him. Ordered to be as cruel as possible, Andrea became quite creative in the art of disposing of these rivals and traitors. Just a few days before her 17th birthday, the master himself died as she was left alone in his ship while the rest of his crew raided an Alir, mining base. Carrying the bloodied head of the captain with her, Andrea went to the slave barracks and opened the gates, ordering everyone there to follow her to freedom. Those who began to question her fell silent as her cold, ice-like eyes fell upon them, her gaze even more threatening than that of the captain she had just slain. Many more heads would be taken by the end of the day, as the Alir miners suddenly found themselves saved by an horde of badly-armed slaves of all races, with a roaring, blonde human girl at their head. Fighting with the same combat style of her captors, Andrea stabbed corsair after corsair in the back while they were distracted, slicing knees and throwing dust to their eyes to blind them before delivering a killing blow. Unsure of her intentions, some Alir even thought she just belonged to another corsair band, even worse than the Yaanaris who had come to enslave them. Only until she revealed her intentions did the workers sigh in relief. After nearly a decade of death and mayhem, Andrea was finally coming back home. A strange citizen If Andrea expected a warm welcome, she would be very dissapointed. Her parents, captured like her during the raid, were either still slaves or corpses some corsair had turned into food for its pets. The rest of her family, uncles and aunts she had never seen or spoken to, were scared of the strange, young woman and the threatening aura which seemed to surround her. She had only been to school one year, had few memories of the customs and traditions of the land she had been taken from...all in all, she was a stranger in her own home. Attempts to recover those years without a proper, standard education were a moderate success at best. While eager to learn, Andrea had trouble grasping several concepts and rules of the life under the government of Ortus. Still a pirate in many ways, she was known to fight and even wound some of her fellow classmates, her cold mask hiding a short temper after years having to follow orders. Desperate to find her place in the society she had fought so hard to return to, Andrea managed to join the Commonwealth's navy. Skilled and eager to learn as fast as she could, Andrea Agrippa slowly managed to create a new home in the navy. While lacking in friends, her skills and the experience she had acquired as a member of a corsair band at least made her respected (if not feared) by her peers. Nicknamed the "Human Yaanari" (but always behind her back), at the age of 29, she finally managed to become captain of one of the corvettes patrolling the Commonwealth's eastern border, a task she performed with great zeal. The Captain Trouble between Andrea and authority arose once again as she began to chase fleeing pirate and corsair vessels into the frontiers of other nations. Even if she left no survivors of those crews and retreated before any patrols could find her ship, those little adventures were not seen with good eyes by High Command. Knowing she was stepping on thin ice, Andrea backed down and agreed to a peaceful, desk job in the Command Center in Ortus for a year and a half. Of course, Andrea did not spend all the time in her new position sulking and feeling angry about the lack of nearby pirates to kill. Speaking with some of the other petty officers working in the base, she learnt of the attacks of pirates around the naton's borders and how the fleet met the problem with more force than wit. Soldiers first, they could not understand the tactics and mindset of a pirate, something which Andrea knew ten times better than all the lessons about proper behaviour she had gotten since arriving back to the Commonwealth. After showing to her superiors her experience and knowledge of pirate and corsair bands, Andrea gave her proposal. It was refused and modified several timesuntil, at the age of 32, Andrea Agrippa was allowed to return to her position as captain. Only this time, she did not command a corvette, but instead a swift, merchant vessel equiped for battle. With it, and a crew of ex-sailors and crew not known precisely for their discipline, Andrea was allowed to perform a few controled missions close to Yaanari space. Two months later, the "Diana" was seen once again in Commonwealth space, far from the common dockyards used by the nation's fleets. As the vessel's doors opened, five-hundred humans, Kithri , Karthemas and Uri walked out, many still unable to believe their chains were finally broken. Aside from a few marks on the ship's skin and a broken battery, the Diana needed little repairs. Its crew, missing only a few members, either praised their captain for her guile and intelligence, or remained quiet about the methods she had used to free the former slaves. A pirate who preys on pirates After the success of her operation, the Commonwealth gave green light to future missions across the nation's borders and beyond it. Working as both a guardian and a bounty hunter, Andrea and the Diana kept close to the limits of the Commonwealth's borders, ready to pounce on any pirate ship bold enough to dare a raid. Bolstered by volunteers from those slaves she had freed, Andrea's campaign against pirates and slavers could truly and properly begin. Just four months after her first adventure, the pirate hunter managed to surprise three corsair ships trying to round up the inhabitants of a poor, farming village. Instead of stopping the corsairs before they landed, Andrea waited until all ships were busy with the village's people before unleashing a furious barrage which blew up two of the ships before their crews could return and fight back. The corsairs of the third were almost reaching their vessel when Andrea herself came at them from one of the nearby woods, the nearly one-hour wait finally over as the ex-slave fell on her foes, cutting two down in close-combat while her crew finished the rest. Human pirates too were not safe from her wrath. A group of the treacherous Golden Rifles company coming from a raid in the territory of the Galactic Entente was hailed by Andrea and her ship. Playing the part of a fellow corsair in service of the League, she invited half of the 62 men of the company to dinner in her ship. When they managed to wake up two days later they were nearing Commonwealth space and were all in chains, those who had remained on their ship either chained too or dead during the taking of the vessel. While Andrea has managed to take several ships, the pirate huntress always tries to keep her fleet as small and agile as possible. Those heavier ships captured by her crews are "released" near the Commonwealth border to be retrieved by incoming patrols. At the same time, Andrea mostly lives on the land, taking the weapons of conquered ships to take the place of those she has lost during an engagement with a pirate force. Her own ship, the "Diana", has been repaired so many times there is very little of the previous merchant ship she commanded at first. The daring of her attacks has not gone unnoticed. Several realms, pirate lords and other influential people have already put a prize on her head. The "Fox" rather than be intimidated, is delighted by the notion, as this not only means her missions are being successfull...but also that there will be more pirate parties for her to hunt down and destroy. Category:Characters Category:Members of the Commonwealth